here's a new political group in Washington called the Republican Main Street Partnership. Its mission — get this — is to "galvanize moderate Republicans who have not been organized in the past." Anyone who follows politics in Washington knows that the liberal Republicans in Congress have already virtually hijacked the conservative agenda. It's reassuring to know that they now are getting better organized.

In any case, the Partnership has now published its inaugural report, entitled "Defining the Federal Role in Education." I actually read most of it and was aghast at how dreadful it was. My friend John Berthoud, the crusading President of the National Taxpayers Union, has exposed many of the absurdities of this report.

For example, the report describes the president of the National Education Association as "one of the most courageous reformers in education today." I promise, I'm not making this up. This is like calling Fidel Castro one of the world's leading crusaders for human rights. Of course, the NEA is the guardian of the status quo — the tireless opponent of education reform unless it means more money. Berthoud tells me that if the NEA had its way in "reforming education," we would be spending $900 billion a year more on education in Washington.

Some of the actual recommendations in the Main Street Partnership are almost laughable. It says, for example, that "the federal government's primary focus and most basic mission should be…seeking equal opportunity for all children." But in the entire report, at least that I could find, the phrase "parental choice" is nonexistent. The reason that we have such an inequitable system is that almost half of all parents — predominantly the lower half in income — are essentially disenfranchised when it comes to picking a school for their kids.

It gets worse. Recommendation #3 is: "We must increase dramatically the federal support for education research." Yes, all that is holding back better school performance in East L.A. and the Bronx is the absence of a few hundred more bureaucrats crunching numbers in Washington. Will someone please tell the Main Streeters that it wasn't until Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in the late 1970s that the school system really started to rot?

So let's sum up. The moderates' solution to our education system is: Feed the arrogant and ineffective monopoly with even more funds; praise the enemy (the NEA); and grow the federal bureaucracy. If this new group has its way, the Republicans will soon edge to the left of the Clinton-Gore Democrats on education policy.

One shudders to think what national problem the Main Street Partnership will try to solve next.